WEBVTT
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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not
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those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
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choosing W FOURCY Radio.
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Churchill said, those who fail to learn from history are
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condemned to repeat it. Kevin Helen N believes that certainly
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applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at
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W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com
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and now your host, Kevin Helen Thanks everybody for joining
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in again today.
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I am Kevin Helenan and welcome back to Winning Business
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TV and Radio on W four cy dot com. We're
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streaming live on talkfor tv dot com, and of course
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we're on Facebook and that's at Winning Business Radio. And
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of course we're available after the live show in podcast
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form on tons of platforms wherever you go for your
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podcast content. We're there, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple again, all
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of those platforms and more. The mission of winning business
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radio and TV, excuse me, as regular listeners and viewers know,
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is to offer insights and advice, to help people avoid
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the mistakes of others, right to learn best practices. Those
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are the how tos, the what too's, the what not tos,
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and to be challenged and hopefully to be inspired by
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the successes of others. Those are consultants, authors, coaches, advisors,
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business owners, founders, entrepreneurs.
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People with expertise.
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But you know, virtually every successful person I've ever had
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a chance to talk to has had some form of
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failure in their lives and careers.
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I say it every week.
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While we all have the our knee skin once in
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a while, I'm driven to keep those scrapes from needing
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major surgery. Let's endeavor to learn from history so we
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don't repeat it. I've spent the better part of my
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career equipping businesses to grow from solopreneurs to small to
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medium sized companies all the way up to the fortune fifty.
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And I've seen a lot of those companies up close
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and personal, and a lot of them win and to
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varying degrees.
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I've seen some fail.
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I've had the opportunity to rub elbows with some of
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the highest performing people around and with some people who
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probably should have found other professions. Right. So, in my
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own businesses, I've had lots of success, but some failures too,
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And I like to think I've learned a lot of
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those lessons from experience. So you're going to hear from
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me some opinions and insights, etc. But you're definitely going
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to hear from really interesting and cool guys like today's guest.
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His name is George Rolfing, owner of BTI Brookline Transportation Company, Incorporated.
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It's a family owned and operated residential and commercial moving
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company headquartered in Hanover, Massachusetts.
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Here's his bio.
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His teeth in the moving business with Larkin Movers and
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Maple Movers in the late nineteen seventies, starting out as
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a driver van operator and running moving crews within three weeks.
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In the early nineteen eighties, he bought the BTI. Under
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his mentorship, the company became a Mayflower franchise and expanded
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its offerings beyond residential and commercial moves. Some of those
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specialty moves include lab moves, computer and electronics moves, trade
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show moves, furniture and fixture assembly and disassembly, customized creating, storaging,
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and more to meet the demands of the growing life
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science and medical community in Greater Boston and beyond. Interestingly enough,
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George created labmovers dot Com as a specialty division of
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his company. With that specialation specialization in plugin transport. Lab
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Movers has moved the lab of Nobel prizewinner Jack Hope.
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I say this correctly, doctor Jack Zostak, formerly of Harvard
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Medical now the University of Chicago. Other lab relocations include
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a move of rare butterfly collection from UC Berkeley to
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the Marine Biological Labs some of you know in Woodshole,
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Mass very cool place, and the relocation of a win
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tunnel from Harvard to UC Davis. George is a longtime
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member of the Mass Movers Association, serving as it's president
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from twenty twelve to twenty fourteen. He's certified by the
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American Moving in Storage Association as an office and Industrial
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consultant and as a moving consultant. George's numerous awards, including
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BBB's twenty sixteen Award winner, the Million Dollar Plus Award
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in twenty sixteen the Mayflower Excellence in Sales Award Outstanding
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Service Award, and BTI is a proud member of the
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Mass Biotech Consul Mary. George continues the tradition of BTI
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being a family owned and operated in business, as his
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wife Karen, and sons Jared and his wife Michaela and
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Jordan all work in the business. George, Welcome to Winning
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Business Radio.
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Thank you very much. Kevin, thank you for the invite.
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You're welcome.
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I appreciate you you're taking the time to be here.
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Tell us about the family first, Karen. Tell us a
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bit bit about Karen and also about her involvement in
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the business.
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Okay, my wife and I met when we were, you know,
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in high school. And I love that we've been together
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for that long. So prior to twenty years then, yeah, yeah,
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twenty years is right, Karen. So we dated for six
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years prior to getting married, and and you know, we've
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been married since nineteen seventy nine. And her and I
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are we work together in our family and we've worked
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together in our business.
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What is her role with jobs does she performed within
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the company.
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Karen's the office manager at the company. She manages the office.
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She does the accounts, payable accounts, receivable billing, all of
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those types of things that happened every day behind the
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scenes that have to get done to help our customers
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with their wing needs.
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Excellent. And Jared and his wife Michaela.
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Yeah, Jared has been with the companies, you know, since
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he's eighteen years old. He's been working at the company.
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He started as a mover driver like myself, and he
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worked in the warehouse for a while. He's learned the
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business from the ground up, so you can understand all
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facets from you know, operations, and now he does sales
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and he does business development. He's also a special project
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specialist when it comes to handling lab and science relocation.
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So he's got the he's got the goods when it
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comes to you know, the specialty let lab moves, if
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you will. He's also certified in handling chemical packing and
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things of that, so he's got some background there.
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We're going to talk about a lot of those specialties.
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I'm very interested to hear that.
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Yeah, his wife, Mikhaela, came to us from Trade to Joe.
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She was a manager at Traded Joe's for for quite
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a long time, working at many of the traded Joe's stores,
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and she's working in the outfacing public side of the move,
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the move management side of the moves. So she's she's
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part of the team that makes sure that everything happens
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the way it's supposed to happen. She's she's behind the
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scenes a lot of times, you know, handling the emails
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and the correspondents and making sure that everything ticks off
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the way it's supposed to in a move that's supposed
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to happen.
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That's really good. And Jordan, and.
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Jordan, he does sales and operation. So Jordan, like like
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Jared his brother, he you know, had to stop from
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the ground up and working in the warehouse and driving
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the trucks and managing the crews and understanding how the
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jobs work. Everybody in our company has to go out
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on a move job to stand what a client goes through.
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So they start even from the process of going out
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on sales calls to understand what the client's expectations are.
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So I really try to get the team involved. So
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the operations crew goes out with the salespeople, and the
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salespeople go up with the operation crews, so they have
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a good understanding of what the expectations are from the
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customer side of things.
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That's fantastic. How big is your team?
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Our team goes from anywhere from you know, a five
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man team to a forty man team depending on the
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size of the project. Yeah, and of course being part
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of the Mayflower system, we can reach out and combine
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all of our assets in the Mayflower system for as
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much as a client with me.
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I want to ask a little bit more about your background.
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Where'd you grow up?
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So I grew up in Jamaica Plane, which is part
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of Boston, and you know, it was a great place
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to grow up around around the city and Jamaica Pond,
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and you know, up and down Santa Street and in
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town Boston on the Green Line and the Orange Line.
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So that's my background when it comes to growing up
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in the city.
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So a little inside baseball. I grew up in Midfield
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in the suburbs.
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But I live now in Rosendale, have been here for
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thirty almost forty years. So I think we probably know
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some of the same people.
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Will talk later, we probably do.
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Yes, Yeah, in fact, you went to Boston English High School.
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I did go to Boston English. Yeah, I did go
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to Boston English during the seventies. It was an interesting
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time that it was the first year of Boston in
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the city, so I have that experience. But it was
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a great I met some great people at Boston English.
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And the building where I went to high school now
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is a research lab for HARBD Medical.
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I understand that.
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Yeah, yeah, Right across from Boston English, I mean right
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across from Boston Latin are Nemesis when it came to sport.
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That's right, which, by the way, I love saying this
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because it's it's pretty cool to me. I coached Pop
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Warner football youth football for many many years. My younger
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son went to Boston Latin and played football, so I've
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been to many not just his years, but many Latin
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English games.
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It's the oldest here. It is audi audience.
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It's the oldest high school football rivalry. Yeah, I can
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say that rivalry in the nation. Sixteen thirty five was
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Latin school and English had to be right around that
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same time time. The rivalry is one hundred something years old, right, Yeah.
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Unfortunately, the winning percentage for Boston English is a little
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bit lower than the Boston Latin.
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Well, I was going to let you say that I'm
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going to let you say that because I'm always on
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the on the Latin side. But it's a cool game
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and it's played, as you know, at Harvard Stadium.
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That's right.
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Yeah, So what did you you studied really prepared for
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business at I did?
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I did study business at Boston English, and that's what
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my primary concern was. And coming out of college, I was,
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you know, in high school and going into college. I
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ended up working for a moving company and JA make
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a plane?
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Yeah, tell us, how did that happen?
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It was on a win really. You know. It's like
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a lot of people in business, they somehow, you know,
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get introduced to something and they fall in love with
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the industry and they get I would say, they get
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hooked and you can't get out. You just get pulled
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in and you can never get out of it. And
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that's what happened to me. You know, I fell in
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love with helping people. And when you're in the moving business,
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it's a lot about helping people get on their journey
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to the new space. And that's what it is. It's
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a journey from start to finish, and it's it can
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sometimes be a wild journey, but a journey nonetheless.
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Well, did you have any jobs, like youth jobs, any
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jobs prior to that professional job coming out of college
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in moving?
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So what what did you do before moving? Is my question?
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Really, I did a lot of different jobs when I
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was a kid, you know, even you know, when it
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was fashionable, I shined shoes. I delivered it. I delivered
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I was a paper boy and we did what was
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called hawking papers off the back of the American truck.
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We would hawk the papers off of the truck and
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you know, bring them to local drinking establishments, if you will,
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and sell the papers at the at the drinking establishments.
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And that's one of the things I did. And there
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was a youth activities place. I worked for the City
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of Boston for a while doing b n b L Basketball,
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which is a summer basketball league in the city of Boston.
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And I was did Jamaica Plane startup to get that
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going cool. I worked for the Registry of Motor Vehicles
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for a short time.